Of the 83 bloggers currently featured on ScienceBlogs.com, 20 write under pseudonyms. Since many of our bloggers frequently write about highly scientific and/or highly controversial topics, some wondered: But but…Can anonymous bloggers be trusted?!

On a non-ScienceBlog (gasp!) Greg Laden commented that “The cost to the anonymous blogger is that they should expect to be taken less seriously than they may like under certain circumstances… Yes, arguments can stand on their own and in an ideal world that sometimes happens. But no, not in real life. We are cultural beings and interactive beings. Also, the value of authority and experience are only lost on those without either.”

DrugMonkey disagreed, arguing that in science, “depending on the ‘authority’ of a relative few is an inferior way to arrive at the closest approximation to the ‘correct’ interpretation.”

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